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(Circulation. 1996;93:1483-1484.)
© 1996 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Uhl's Anomaly Revisited

Henry S.M. Uhl, MD

Correspondence to Henry S.M. Uhl, MD, 2800 Monticello Dr, Winston-Salem, NC 27106.

Key Words: Editorials • heart diseases • heart block • myocardium

	Introduction

 
The Clinicopathological Conference presented by James and colleagues¹ in this issue of Circulation is of special interest because the fate of my own patient, like this one, followed a brief clinical course and death. In this case, however, a specific explanation is proposed and the suggested process (apoptosis) is abundantly illustrated. The possibility that this may explain other examples of Uhl's anomaly and the related condition of arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia is logical but must await verification in future cases.

Nearly half a century has gone by since I carried out the autopsy of an 8-month-old infant in 1949.² This was a time of extraordinary development of surgery for congenital heart disease at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center under the leadership of Dr Helen Taussig and Dr Alfred Blalock. As a result of this work and that of other university medical centers, many infants, children, and adults were able to live with alleviation of symptoms—but not with a cure. And that is an irony or paradox of our society as this extraordinary century of medical progress comes to an end.

Dr Lewis Thomas³ has pointed out that there are some 25 major afflictions of humans in our society, leading him to state that there is an unfinished agenda for modern biomedical science. The record in this century "has established two general principles about human disease. First, it is necessary to know a great deal about underlying mechanisms before one can really act effectively. Second, for every disease there is a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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